Carrefour & Pizza Hut!

Liangxiang is forever changed. Before Friday, we had 2 McDonald's, 3 KFCs, (The Chinese like their chicken!) and several mid-sized supermarkets with zero foreign goods to offer.

We have anticipated the openings of Carrefour (French version of Wal-Mart) and Pizza Hut since we moved here. We would ask around when it would open and everyone would confidently give us a different date. On Thursday, we heard some big fireworks (what every new store and new bride does to scare away the "evil spirits.") We had high hopes it was what we had been anticipating. And it was!

A teammate and I went to Carrefour over the lunch hour. It was its opening day, but surprisingly wasn't jam-packed, as we expected it to be. (We learned later they didn't even announce the opening, knowing it would be packed either way.) We were on a time crunch, so we quickly went through the 3 floors of clean merchandise. (The other stores tend to get grungy b/c of so many people and it's so dusty here.) But we didn't see an import section! We had to find it. They had to have one!

We stopped to ask a worker. He had no idea what we were talking about. Soon, a manager-type-guy came out who spoke English--always a good thing! He led us to the import section and we were blown away. Pasta, a few kinds of spaghetti sauce, cereal, Nutella, English tea, more European goodies, etc. This was groundbreaking! We usually had to make an all-day trek into town to get these items!! However, we were curious if we could request more items if we wanted them. The manager kindly took my friend's card and said he'd be in contact. We let him know our main commodity was CHEESE! He laughed, knowing what we were talking about because he had lived in New York. I still don't think he knew the gravity of our request, but we were happy he was at least willing to try.

We made our way down to the refrigerated section and found butter. Several kinds of butter! (We've had to buy butter in bulk because sometimes they'd run out and not re-stock.) We were happy campers.

The next day, another teammate went to check it out. (See how excited we were??) When she went, they had 5+ kinds of Land o' Lakes CHEESE! We about died! And lots of (chinese..eh) ice cream! I'll still take it. :) Either Mr. Manager really got on the ball (doubtful) or they just hadn't stocked everything (realistic).

I went again yesterday to scope more things out. Mistake. It was a Saturday. Below is not the greatest pic, but there were hundreds of people trying to get in. A worker was yelling over a megaphone, but of course I had no idea what he was saying, so I joined in the pushing game. I literally almost fell over--but there was someone 1/2" on the other side of me to "catch" me. Haha. Wow, that was nuts.

And Pizza Hut is open!!!! We have a Chinafied pizza place in town--yuck. However, a teammate went to PH and said they don't have plain pepperoni--or any of our usual pizzas. They have the ingredients, but they'll pile a buncha other stuff on it. Ex: pepperoni, ham, shrimp, corn, peppers on 1 pizza. Yikes. We'll just have to tell them how to make it the right way! We're hoping to try it out soon, but every time I pass by, there's a major line. And, it'll be a treat--a small pizza (9") is about $7. That's a lot of yuan for a small pizza. :)

And a bonus picture. Safety first!